The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red;Materialism = FAKE

[JoeMorgue]

What was the chain of reasoning you used to determine I couldn't define consciousness?

Well probably the fact that you asked me to do it.

I'm not stupid, I know this game. Don't talk down to me as if you're succeeding in setting up the "gotcha" and I don't see it.

Consciousness.

Meaning 1. The simple normal, understood neurological process that takes place using understood natural forces and events inside a human brain which produces a being capable of self awareness. This exists and has been explained to reasonable levels.

Meaning 2. Some magic, non-natural, non-quantifiable quality that science "just can't account for shucks darnit" that is required to be a fully "aware" human or that accounts for some "air gap" that doesn't exist between our awareness and our senses, that is pretty much just "soul." This does not exist, so I will not be explaining it.

You will use Consciousness to mean both 1 and 2 interchangeably until I slip up and don't clarify it one time, at which point the clarification will become the discussion forever with no way of going back. I've played this game before. I say "Consciousness when you're using it as code word for soul doesn't exist" and I get presented a clumsy "Aha! You stumbled into my clever trap later" moment when I use the term "consciousness" in some offhand manner to mean "basic awareness" or "not being asleep/knocked out" or whatever. I know this because this is literally how this discussion always goes. I've already got my copy of the script. It's very well worn.

So to clarify.

Meaning 1. Exists and is explainable.
Meaning 2. Doesn't exist so doesn't need to be explained.

I will tolerate no discussion that requires me to clarify 1 and 2 over and over so go ahead and figure out now which word for 1 and which word for 2 we should both be using.

But since we're having a discussion about it I will assume that you think either 1 or 2 is wrong.

Now, please, present what part of the human mental experience exists that can't be explained by the normal functioning neurological system of a human brain. Clearly, without word salad, and in your own words not the words of someone who died before indoor plumbing.

 

[xjx388]

Consciousness is the moment-by-moment experience of a human (let’s keep it simple and leave animals out of it). Seems pretty simple to me.

We know that both of us have brains. I can infer that you probably experience red in much the same way I do. I don’t need to know for sure.

 

[Darat]

Consciousness is the moment-by-moment experience of a human (let’s keep it simple and leave animals out of it). Seems pretty simple to me.

We know that both of us have brains. I can infer that you probably experience red in much the same way I do. I don’t need to know for sure.

And if we don’t then that would be very much the exception since we know all other organs pretty much give the same output when given the same input.

(Caveat of course regarding variations in people with typical organs.)

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Well probably the fact that you asked me to do it.

I asked you to define it, which is different than explaining it. Like for example, prime numbers. They're easy to define hard to explain. Yet, there are in infinite number of them, as was proven by a philosopher in 300 BC who never even heard of the android operating system.

Meaning 1. The simple normal, understood neurological process that takes place using understood natural forces and events inside a human brain which produces a being capable of self awareness. This exists and has been explained to reasonable levels.

It looks like your explanation/definition (??) of consciousness tell us that it is simple, normal and understood, and that it has been explained. I love that trick. Can we add the part about being "simple, normal, and understood' to our definition for dark matter. That certainly would streamline things for scientists!

Meaning 2. Some magic, non-natural, non-quantifiable quality that science "just can't account for shucks darnit" that is required to be a fully "aware" human or that accounts for some "air gap" that doesn't exist between our awareness and our senses, that is pretty much just "soul." This does not exist, so I will not be explaining it.

Cool.

Meaning 1. Exists and is explainable.
Meaning 2. Doesn't exist so doesn't need to be explained.

Again. I was asking for the explanation, not for you the repeat that you you think it has been explained.

 

[RedStapler]

Again. I was asking for the explanation, not for you the repeat that you you think it has been explained.

Define explanation.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Consciousness is the moment-by-moment experience of a human (let’s keep it simple and leave animals out of it). Seems pretty simple to me.

I'd probably add the word 'subjective', but it seems like a reasonable definition. Wikipedia says "awareness or sentience of internal or external existence", which seems pretty similar.

 

[xjx388]

And if we don’t then that would be very much the exception since we know all other organs pretty much give the same output when given the same input.

(Caveat of course regarding variations in people with typical organs.)

Yes, exactly. I, a layman and not a neuroscientist/cognitive scientist, don’t need to confirm it. I’m content with merely making an inference based on the fact that the rest of our bodies operate almost exactly the same. I certainly don’t need made up concepts to explain it.

Even then: we don’t know every chemical process in the body. There are many drugs that we don’t know the exact mechanism of action yet, we only know that they work. Take a drug as ubiquitous as acetaminophen/paracetamol; we still don’t know exactly how it works. You don’t hear anyone talking about “magical” properties of Tylenol, we just don’t fully understand it yet -only that it’s safe and effective. The same is true for many substances found naturally in the body.

We are pretty sure it’s all physical even if we can’t explain it all. I can be convinced otherwise, with evidence, not philosophy.

 

[devhdb]

Define explanation.

Define to define.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

And if we don’t then that would be very much the exception since we know all other organs pretty much give the same output when given the same input.

(Caveat of course regarding variations in people with typical organs.)

Sure, but the brain is many orders of magnitude more complex than your typical organ. There's a reason it earned the nickname "the three pound universe". And we know that all brains do not respond the same when given the same inputs, don't we? I mean this in the sense that a brain is roughly analogous to a person and we know all posters on this forum do not respond to the same input in the same way!

Of course, something like seeing the color red seems more primitive, and less to do with the cultural history and conditioning of someone considering their next forum post. Like we might have needed to see red to recognize ripe apples or dangerous berries or insects. But I really think probably a determination is just made that X is or is not red, and the subjective conscious experience just comes along for the ride as part of our internal model of the world. If we probe brains in roughly the same way, we can activate roughly the same areas of different brains. But the complexity is staggering, the differences are large, and the variety in brain chemistry and architecture is significant.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again. I was asking for the explanation, not for you the repeat that you you think it has been explained.

No. It's 2020. I'm not explaining to another adult human being that "the brain creates the mind" is a well established fact so you can nitpick it to death and back. It's "Water is wet" and "Magnets are magic" levels of established. If you aren't having an existential crisis of faith over the "Hard problem of the heart pumping blood" or "The hard problem of the pancreas creating insulin" you shouldn't be having one about the brain producing the mind.

Either you accept that "you" are the natural process of neurological processes in your brain or you're invoking a soul. There's no third option.

I have no desire to play "Soul of the Gaps" with you.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

No. It's 2020. I'm not explaining to another adult human being that "the brain creates the mind" is a well established fact so you can nitpick it to death and back.

What kind of broken reasoning did you use to determine I would have taken issue with the statement that the brain creates the mind?

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Funny, I've just started looking at articles in Nature and Scientific American on consciousness, and they almost all start by defining terms as used by philosophers. So, scratch those pseudoscientific rags off your reading list.

 

[RedStapler]

Funny, I've just started looking at articles in Nature and Scientific American on consciousness, and they almost all start by defining terms as used by philosophers. So, scratch those pseudoscientific rags off your reading list.

Some good ol' well poisoning.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Funny, I've just started looking at articles in Nature and Scientific American on consciousness, and they almost all start by defining terms as used by philosophers. So, scratch those pseudoscientific rags off your reading list.

This is just the "Everything is a type of philosophy, so you can't say anything bad about any philosophy" argument from a different angle.

 

[JoeMorgue]

What kind of broken reasoning did you use to determine I would have taken issue with the statement that the brain creates the mind?

Then what are we talking about then? If it's been explained what are we "philosophizing" about? Why are we still looking for "qualia?"

 

[MohamedTaqi]

Nope, no buts, otherwise you are contradicting the highlighted part. This means if our understanding of physics is sufficient, it will absolutely be possible to describe red to a blind person. The highlighted parts forces you to agree with this. The claim me and others here are making is that we've already passed the point of "suffuciently understanding the physics", and therefore can currently right now describe red to a blind person WITHOUT the need for qualia.

So, if qualia exists, we should be able to define it RIGHT NOW, using already known physics. With equations associated with it. The fact that we cant says that qualia doesnt exist. If you think it does, the first step is defining it. But you admit you cant.

I am a skeptic .. I claim that our understanding of physics will never be sufficient . Everything is physical (that is, a product or emergent phenomenon of physics) .. But not everything can be known to us.

We can for example know much about quarks, leptons , baryons and their spin, mass... But we can never know what it feels like to be a quark.

Of course, there's probably no "feeling" to being a quark, or an atom... but, if panpsychism is true : then it follows that there is an element of : "what it is like to be something?" in matter.

And this element is not really "consciousness" as we know it in matter. It is a much simpler version of what we might call "consciousness". So, if our conscious experience can be described as 80% vivid. An atom would have a near zero consciousness, but not zero.

If that is the case, then :

- Everything is contingent on physics. (if there is no brain, there is no consciousness).

- There are properties of matter that are forever inaccessible to us (what it is like to be a different object than your brain). We can access "spin" , but we can't access what it is like to be a photon traveling at the speed of light.

- Physics is not fully explanable : objective properties are the only accessible properties.

And if this is the case, then even if we have a theory that unites the 3 forces (EM, weak and strong nuclear forces) with gravity .. we can never predict what it is like to be something else, other than your brain.

To make things simple : even if you have a relatively simple example : an atom, you cannot start from the premise on how an atom works, to conclude that an atom has no subjective experience of itself.

We can only assume an atom has no consciousness, we can never reach that conclusion based on what we objectively know. And I think the same for goes the brain .

But nevertheless, our consciousness, and what an atom looks like from its own perspective (or the absense of that perspective), are all contingent on the physical : on the fact that there is a brain and an atom in the first place.

It is a nightmare, that the subjective is forever hidden from the objective (although both are physical aspects of the same thing). But consider this example :

Imagine a future scientist has a very complex super-brain , a mind that can think of all the physical calculations and equations, and firing neurons and chemicals that can lead to "what red looks like".


I argue that this scientist, once he starts to think in terms of the objective (a neuron fires, this happens, this happens, that happens), his thinking WILL produce a conscious experience of red.

But, this conscious experience, will not be accessible to our scientist, this subjective conscious experience would be another experience that emerged on top of our scientist's experience.

Our brain does not know what red looks like, it just runs the algorithm, that produces a subjective aspect, that is forever inaccessible to the brain itself. Just like "what it is like to be a photon" is forever inaccessible to any physicist, regardless of his knowledge.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

This is just the "Everything is a type of philosophy, so you can't say anything bad about any philosophy" argument from a different angle.

It is?

I just thought it didn't square very well with your earlier ranting that these scientific magazine brought up old philosophers to set the stage.

It seems like you've invested an awful lot of emotion in a lot of these issues.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Our brain does not know what red looks like, it just runs the algorithm, that produces a subjective aspect, that is forever inaccessible to the brain itself.

OK, then what does know what red looks like? The mind associated with tat particular brain?

 

[MohamedTaqi]

What I mean is that the subjective and objective are both two aspects of the physical. Although it is impossible to access the subjective from the objective.

Like two sides of one coin : they are both contingent on the coin, but you can't access one from the other. This is nightmarish if you think about it.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

What I mean is that the subjective and objective are both two aspects of the physical. Although it is impossible to access the subjective from the objective.

Right, but that still doesn't answer my question about what does know what red looks like if not the brain. Or perhaps you're a color nihilist and think there is no such thing as the color red as an experience.